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THE 



ORIGIN, GROWTH AND TENDENCIES 



EDUCATION IN THE UNITEO STATES. 



AN OUTLINE SKETCH 



V^ Bv ORISON TOMLTNSON. * - ^.: ^ 



SOUTH BEND, IND.: 

HENRY A. FORD 
1874. 

COPYEIGHT SECUBED. 



VS- 



o 



[DUMTIOI IN TIE UNITtI STATES, 



FIRST THE PURITANS. 

There have been two forces in this country that have proved 
themselves capable of organizing and maintaining schools — one, 
the Christian church in its various branches; the other, political 
State organizations. 

The Puritan branch of the Protestant church was the founder 
of our school systems. This was a work of such importance that 
the attention of the nation will be directed to it as long as it 
maintains its existence as such, and the public interest will 
increase and intensify in the same ratio that time advances. 

It will be the purpose of this paper to. estimate, with sufficient 
fullness to convey a distinct idea, the two great jDrinciples on 
w^hich our school systems rest, yet with the greatest possible 
brevity consistent with this idea; and as they had their origin in 
firmly fixed religious convictions, our attention will first be di- 
rected to that department of the subject. 

In the last half of the 16th century a very small portion, both 
of the clergy and laity of the Church of England, became dissat- 
isfied with its practice and the form of its organization. Of these 
there were two general classes — one that proposed to remain in 
the church and purify it; the other, having no hope of accom- 
plishing so great a work, separated from it. The latter are those 
whose principles and j^ractice we shall briefly trace. 

The reasons they gave for leaving the Church of England were 
that its organization as national permitted the administration of 
the sacraments established by Christ to the vile — those who did 
not even make a profession of the common moralities; and that 
the offices by which its government were administered were al- 



4 OnroiN, Gjjownr, axo Texdexcies of 

nujst an entire (leparture iVoni tlio practice of the churches estab- 
lished by the A}X)stles,* who received tlieir appointment from? 
( 'hrist Himself. 

The or<ranization of a sejmrate church, however, was ag-ainst 
the laws of England; yet the conviction that it was a solemn 
duty had so firmly fastened itself upon their minds that they took 
the ffreat lisk of violatinor the civil laws of ICno-land. in order to 
obey the law of God. 

In 1602 they organized themselves into a church, but were so 
pjirsecuted that they could not worship in public assemblies, and 
roncluded to remove to Holland, where all Christian sects were 
tolerated. 

Holland, even at that time, was a densely populated country, 
and the removal of a considerable body of people to it would 
seem to require large capital, and the motive great gain. They 
were generally poor, and were proposing to settle among a peo- 
j)Ie whose language or industries they did not understand. With 
these stern facts staring them in the face, they at last fully re- 
solved to do it, and after the most heartless betrayal, on the part 
of a shipmaster, that the mind can conceive, tb»4 persecutions, 
tJK^ kingdom of Great Britain ought to remember with shame, 
and a passage through one of the most violent storms that ever 
swept over the North Sea, the first company reached Amsterdam 
in 1(507, and were joined by the most of their friends the next 
year. 

From Amsterdam they removed to Leyden, and during their 
residence there, previous to their removal to America, increased 
to a church numbering thiee hundred communicants. The Dutch 
magistrates voluntarily gave them a compliment by stating that 
although they had been annoyed by litigation from the Protestant 



* See BradfDrcVs Histoiy, p. 4. This work was written by William Brad- 
fi)rd, who was the second governor of the Plj^mouth Colony. The first gov- 
ernqr, John Carver, held his office only from the landing in December until 
the following April, when he died. Mr. Bradford was then chosen, and held 
tlie office for thirty consecutive years, with the exception of five. The work 
takes precedence of all others in everything pertaining to the origin and set- 
tlement of the Puritans in America. It was lost, and lay in manuscript over 
two hundred years, when it was found in the library of the Bishop of London, 
copied and published, for. the first time, by the Massachusetts Historical Soci- 
ety, in ISfjC. 



Education ix the United States. 5 

refugees of Spain and France, this English church had given 
them no trouble. 

In 1617 the more thoughtful among them began to see that a 
continued residence there would obliterate their vernacular lan- 
guage and give to the next generation the characteristics of the 
Hollanders. It was so hard for them to connect themselves with 
the industries of the country that some had wasted what property 
they had, and were obliged to return to England. There was no 
hope of reforming the Dutch method of keeping the Sabbath. 
Some were getting old, and saw no pleasant future before them 
in that land. The means of subsistence were so hard to obtain 
that they were forced to work their children to decrepitude to 
obtain it, which prevented those of like religious views from join- 
ing them.* These, wHh other reasons, finally led them to the 
conclusion that they might ])etter remove to some other country; 
and, alter considering various places in the troi)ics, they finally 
selected North America. 

•' In IGOG King James, by letters patent, divided a strip of land one hnr.- 
dred miles wide, along the Atlantic coast of North Americi, extending from 
the 3-tth to the -1:5th degress of north latitude — a territory which then went 
luider the common name of Virginia — between two companies that were to 
colonize it. The first, or London company, was to colonize between the 34th 
and 41st degrees, and the second between the 38th and 4r)th. Each company 
was to be under the government of a council of thirteen. The London com- 
Ijany had at this time appropriated to itself, exclusivel}', the title of the Vir- 
ginia Company ; and it was to the council of that company that the agents of 
the Puritans applied for permission to make a settlement." ''r 

The council could not obtain from the king any pledge of re- 
ligious toleration; ])ut he gave them to understand that he would 
waive all open opj^osition. A patent was granted, and a joint 
stock company formed with some merchants of London, whicii 
was to continue seven years. The stock was divided into shares 
of ten pounds each, and every person that went, aged sixteen 
year^ or upwards, was to be counted one share; all between ten 
and sixteen, two for a share; and all under ten years were to re- 
ceive fifty acres of unmanured land at the final division. They 
were to have their living out of the counuon earnings; were to 



* See Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, p. 381 ; Bradford's Hi;- 
tory, pp. 22-24. 

f See Bradford's History, p. 40. 



6 Origin, Growth, and Tendencies of 

work ill common; and at the end of the seven years the property 
was to be divided on that basis of stock representation.* 

This was truly a hard bargain. A negro slave, with no other 
qualification than an ability to do the simplest kind of manual 
labor, has often brought fifteen hundred dollars in this country; 
but here were some well-educated men who, to establish their 
principles, were willing to place their services against fifty dol- 
lars. 

After much disagreement, and long consultation, one hundred 
and two persons left Plymouth Harbor, in England, on the 6th of 
September, 1620, in the Mayflower, anchored at Cape Cod on 
the 11th of December, and on the 25th of December began to 
erect the first house at Plymouth, now in the State of Massachu- 
setts. 

This was not within the limits of the territory described in 
their patent; consequently they had no higher authority to ap- 
peal to for the enforcement of the laws they might make than a 
civil compact formed while aboard the vessel at Cape Cod.f 

This position inaugurated a new era in the history of mankind. 
All other colonies had been connected with the governing power 
of the country from which they came. Viewed in the light of 
general experience, we should suppose they would have looked to 
the jurisprudence of the country from which they came (to 



* It is not to be understood that they adopted the principles of the com- 
mune, for they maintained the integrity of the family, and the number of 
families was nineteen. The number of subscribers to the stock, besides the 
persons who came, was about seventy, of whom but little is known. See note 
in Young's Chronicles, p, 80. 

+ In 1G20 King James granted a patent to a company to colonize between 
the 4()th and 48th degrees of north iatitude, and from ocean to ocean. This 
annulled a portion of his former patent to the London company, and is the 
great civil basis upon which all the future patents and plantations rest. See 
note, p. 80, Young's Chronicles; also Quackenboss's Historj- of the United 
States. 

The adventurers obtained of the council of this company a patent, which 
was taken out, in trust, by John Pierce, who so far abused his trust as to ob- 
tain another patent, wholly in his own name, with the intention of reducing 
the colony to a sort of serfdom, owing allegiance to him as lord. He met 
with so many disasters in attempting to cross the ocean, that he was finally 
induced to sell it to the adventurers in London for five hundred pounds. It 
cost him fifty pounds. See Bradford's History, pp. 138-140. 



Education ix the United States. 7 

England) for precedents. They did so in a great measure; but 
as they went directly back past the Church of England, Calvin, 
Luther, and all the great lights of the Reformation; also the 
church of Rome, until they reached the Apostles appointed by 
Christ, for a form of church organization, and to the teachings of 
Christ for religious doctrines, so for a civil code they were not 
contented to stop with the laws of England, but went back of 
them, and back of the notable system of Roman jurisprudence, 
until they reached the law of Moses. Offences were construed to 
be capital crimes, which, in all probability, the jurisprudence of 
England had at that time outgrown. If not, it is certain that ex- 
ecutions under these penalties were sustained by citations of the 
law of Moses, precisely analogous to the methods of our lawyers, 
in sustaining their positions by citations of the statute laws and 
judicial decisions.* 

This colony was not the absolute founder of all the rest of New 
England, but it certainly performed the office of forerunner in a 
sense as complete as John the Baptist did for the Saviour. A 
detachment from them made the first English settlement at Ken- 
oebeck in Maine; another, that first landed there (Weston's), pre- 
ceded Endicott and Winthrop in Massachusetts; and still another, 
the first English settlement on the Connecticut. f Roger Wil- 
liams,]; the founder of Rhode Island, preached to the Plymouth 
church, and there gave distinct premonitions of the doctrines that 
cost him his expulsion from Salem, in Massachusetts, and resulted 
in his settlement at Providence. Mr. Wheelwright, a divine, but 
direct from Massachusetts, gave the first real prosperity to Exeter 
in New Hampshire. In all of these colonies there were two in- 
stitutions — the family and the church — that were to prepare the 
people for the duties of citizenship. At Plymouth, the elders of 
the church kept a strict watch over the members, and a commit- 
tee was appointed to visit all who Avere suspected of trying to 
evade the law requiring all to attend church, the magistrates 
standing ready, if necessary, to enforce its orders. In Massachu- 
setts, none were permitted to vote or hold office who were not 
church members. In New Haven, the Bible was declared to be 



* See Bradford's History, pp. 389-398. 

t See Bradford's History, p. 313. 

1 Williams first landed in Massachusetts. 



8 Oki<;ix, GitoxN th, axd Texdexctes of 

the only foundation of law and rule of public conduct. In every 
Puritan settlement the church, after the family, was the prepara- 
tory school for citizenship. The civil government itself was com- 
pelled to execute its decrees, in emergencies, through the entire 
seventeenth century.* In dress, they were so severely correct as 
to name the articles the wearing of which were inconsistent with 
a Christian life. For the names of their children they selected 
those of the Scriptures, though in this respect they did not go as 
far as the Puritans of England, who finally rallied under Crom- 
well as a leader. Like the .lews, they commenced the observ- 
ance of the Sal)])ath on Saturday evening. The denial of relig- 
ious freedom in the land of tlieir birth, and their emigration to 
Holland and this country, were compared to the fleeing of the 
Jews from P^gypt, and their dreary wanderings in the desert. 
Theii- children and servants were all stricth' taug-ht a religious 
catechism. 

Out of this atmosphere school systems in North America first 
emerged. It is su})erfluous to say that they must of necessity 
have been the auxiliaries of the church. What such a commu- 
nity could do for the organization and maintenance of schools 
must be accredited to the Protestant Christian cliurch. What 
that work was we will now endeavor to determine by a glance 
through the colonial legislation of the original, thirteen colonies of 
this repu1)Iic. Those who l)ecome sufficiently interested to trace 
its influence upon tlie industrial and commercial development of 
the country, will find that it was not inimical to either. 

sE(\)XD — Till': ro:\i:\rox sc hooks of thf fukitaxs. 
The school systems, of which those of the present are but a 
development or full realization, were commenced by the organi- 
zation of Harvard University in 1G36, in Massachusetts Bay Col- 
ony. In the first volume of the records of the General Court 
will be found the law organizing the classical di^partment of that 
institution. It reads as follows: + 



* See account of the witchcraft executions in all the histories of the United 
States. 

t See Education in ^Massachut^etts — Legislation and Hi^t(jrv. l>y Geo. B. 
Emerson. 



Education in the United States. 9 

" At a court holden Sept. 8th, IGSO, and continued by adjournment to the 
2Sth of the eighth month, October, 1636, the court agreed to give four hun- 
dred pounds towards a school or college ; two hundred pounds to be paid next 
year, and two hundred pounds when the work is finished ; and the next court 
to appoint where and what building. " 

Two years thereafter, John Harvard, a clergyman, died, be- 
queathing one-half of his property, amounting to eight hundred 
pounds, and his entire library, numbering about three hundred 
voltimes, to the college; and they immediately commenced its 
construction, giving it his name. At the time of the passage of 
the law we have quoted, the inhabitants did not, at most, number 
over four, thousand souls, and had organized in sixteen 'owns. 
They were generally poor, living in log houses, huts, and hovels, 
and were worshipping in a church in Boston, the walls of which 
were made of mud, and the roof of straw. At the time of the 
completion of the college there were four colonies:* New Ply- 
mouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven. They 
all contributed from the very agonies of want to its officers and 
students. The names of the donors have been carefully- pre- 
served, and the donations consist of money, cows, cotton cloth, 
salt dishes, dishes for fruit, sugar spoons, pewter flagons, globes, 
bells, goblets, and corn from many bushels down to a single peck. 
Dr. Dwight says: " It is questionable whether a more honora- 
])le specimen of public spirit can be found in the history of man- 
kind." 

In 1647 the following jDreamble and law were prej^ared by the 
Legislature of the same colony, establishing primary and inter- 
mediate schools. This was the first law passed in the country, 
establishing these grades of schools, and will always he referred 
to with interest : f 



* Both of the settlements of Rhode Island were made previous to this : 
but Williams was a Baptist and Ann Hutchinson a Quakeress, and their re- 
ligious doctrines so obnoxious tliat the other New England colonies would 
have nothing to do with them. They were not even in the confederation of 
1643, which was formed under the title of the United Colonies of New England. 
A copy of the articles of agreement of that confederation can be found in 
Bradford's History. It will also show that neither the Massachusetts nor the 
Plymouth Colony had even business relations with the Ehode Island settle- 
ments at that time. 

t I am still following Emerson. 



10 Okigix, Growth, axd Texdexcies of 

" It being one chief project of the old deluder. Satan, to keep men fronj 
the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an 
unknown tongue ; so in these latter times by persuading from the use of 
tongues, that so at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be 
clouded by false gloss of saiut-seeming deceivers: now that learning may not 
l)e buried in the grave of our fathers, in the church and commonwealth, the 
Lord assisting our endeavors, it is therefore ordered : That every township in 
this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty 
householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all 
such children as sliall resort to him to write and read ; whose wages shall be 
paid either by the parents or masters of such children^ or by the inhabitants 
in general, by way of supplj'^, as the major part of those that order the pruden- 
tials of the town shall appoint ; provided those that send their children be not 
oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other 
towns ; and it is further ordered, that where any town shall increase to the 
number of one hundred families or householders, thej^ shall set up a grammar 
school, the master thereof being al)le to instruct youth so far as they may be 
fitted for the university : provided that if any town neglect the performance 
hereof above one year, that every such town shall pay five pounds till they 
shall perform this order."' 

We discover that this is plainly the work of the church, and 
that it was then so far in the ascendant in that colony as to di- 
rect and control the Legislature. The passage of this law com- 
pleted the theory of their educational systems. It surpassed, in 
its scope and aims, what had ever before been attempted by any 
potentate or people.* It contains every element of the school 
systems of the present. The lowest grade corresponds to our 
primary schools, and the grammar schools to our high schools and 
academies. To relieve parents of all excuse for not sending 
their children, power was given to the town committees to make 
them free. 

In entire accordance with the spirit of the foregoing laws, the 
following law was passed May 3, 1G54: 

" Forasmuch as it greatly concerns the welfare of the country that the youth 
thereof be educated, not only in good literature, but sound doctrine, this 
Court doth therefore commend it to the serious consideration and special care 
of the officers of the college, and the selectmen of the several towns, not to 
admit, or suffer, any such to be continued in the oflfice or place of teaching, 
educating, or instructing of youth or children, in the college or schools, that 
have manifested themselves unsound in the faith, or scandalous in their lives, 
and not giving due satisfaction according to the rules of Christ "' 



Lord Macaulay's speech in the British Parliameur, (pioted by Emerson. 



Education ix the United States. 11 

In Connecticut, as already noticed, there were originally two 
•colonies — the Connecticut Colony and the New Haven Colony. 
They were united under a charter given by Charles II. of Eng- 
land, in 1662. The laws of the Connecticut Colony were first 
printed in 1650, and those of "the New Haven Colony in 1656. 
Both of these codes specially provided for the education of all 
the children. School systems, however, had been provided for 
from the very first settlements. They were town schools similar 
to those of Massachusetts. 

In 1712 the church parishes, or ecclesiastical societies, com- 
prising usually a part of a town, but sometimes parts of two or 
more towns, were entrusted with the supervision of schools with- 
in their several limits. In 1798 the parishes were constituted 
school societies, and had their management till 1860. This shows 
a strictly religious supervision to a very recent date.* Grammar 
schools, in which the Greek and Latin lanp-uagres were tausrht, 
were also organi5:ed at a very early date in that colony. Con- 
necticut has, at no time, been without an efficient school system. 
They were supported with greater steadiness, through its entire 
colonial history, than in any other colony. Until immigration 
filled up her manufacturing towns with a foreign population, an 
adult person who could not read and write was considered a cu- 
riosity. 

New Hampshire first established schools by law in 1658. The 
town system of the two colonies previously mentioned prevailed, 
which shows that they were acting on the same general plan.f 

Rhode Island was at first settled in two colonies, one by Roger 
Williams at Providence, the other on Rhode Island in Narragan- 
set Bay by Ann Hutchinson and her followers, who were Qua- 
kers. In 1661 they received a charter, and were united under 
the present name. The school system of the other New England 
colonies was adopted.]; 

* For the facts in relation to the Connecticut Schools, I am indebted to 
the statements of Hon. B. G. Northropj'Secretarj- Conn. State Board of Ed- 
ucation. 

t For an account of the New Hampshire schools I am indebted to the state- 
ments of Hon. A. C. Hard}^ State Supt. Public Instruction. At the time of 
the founding of their schools they were under the protection of Massachusetts, 
See histories of the United States: Hildreth, Quackenboss, and Venable. 

X For knowledge of the Rhode Island schools, I am indebted to Hon. T. 
W. Bicknell, Secretary of the State Board of Education. 



12 Origin, Growth, axd Texdexcies of 

In New York, we search colonial records in vain for evidence 
of the founding of school systems by law. In 1795 the subject 
was first discussed with a view to practical results. In 1805 a 
State fund was created to aid in their support; Init a common 
school system was not permanently organized till 1812.* 

The town of NfeAvark, in New Jersey, established a school by 
vote at a town meeting, Nov. 21, 1676, in which reading and 
writino- were tauirht, and arithmetic if the inhabitants desired it. 
On the 12th of October, 1693, which was 17 years after the school at 
Newark was organized, the Assembly passed an act " For estab- 
lishing School Masters within the Province." In 1695 the act of 
1693 was so amended as to allow of the moving of the schools 
from place to place, f From that time nothing was done in New 
Jersev, in relation to schools, while it remained a colony of Eng- 
land."^ 

Pennsylvania made no effort while a colony to found a school 
system. The first determined effort was made in that State in 
1833, under the leadership of Thaddeus Stevens. In the course 
of the next two years a State system was permanently organized.]; 

The first legislative action in Delaware, in relation to primary 
schools, was taken in February, 1829. A State system was then or- 
ganized, which has been gradually changed l)y legislative enact- 
ments into its present form. Judge Hall, of Wilmington, w^as 
the leader of the movement.*! 

Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina took no action in re- 
lation to public school systems until after the census of 1840 
showed the alarming number of adults who could neither read 
nor write. 

On the 8th of April, 1710, an act passed the General Assem- 
bly of South Carolina, under the Governorship of Lord Craven 
Palentine, appointing commissioners of free schools, and requir- 
ing them to take charge of legacies and other sums given for 
that purpose. In 1811 the Legislature passed an act appropri- 



* Hon. A. B. Weaver, State Snpt. Public Instruction, New York. 

t Hon. E. A. Apgar, State Snpt. of New Jersey. 

X H. Valentine, D-D., President of Pennsylvania College. 

*t I received a detailed account of the Delaware primary school system 
from Mr. Hall ; and an account of the interest he had taken in it from Prof. 
Riley, ex-President of St. Mary's College. 



Education ix the United States. lo 

ating three hundred dollars per annum for the support of free 
schools.* The unavoidable inference is that the most South 
Carolina had done, up to 1811, was to recognize the necessity of 
general education, without making any adequate provision for it, 
Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, was an earnest and effi- 
I'ient promoter of education. John and Charles Wesley were 
among the first settlers, both of whom returned to England, and 
became distinguished as the founders of the Methodist Church — 
particularly the former. The celebrated Whitefield passed some 
years in the colony, and founded an orphan asylum. All of these 
distinguished clergymen supported the efforts of Oglethorpe in 
l^ehalf of education. The first constitution of Georgia, adopted 
Feb. 5, 1775, declares that schools shall be erected in each county, 
and supported at the general expense of the State. In 1783 one 
thousand acres of land were appro})riated to each county for the 
support of free schools. In 1792 an act was passed appropria- 
ting one thousand pounds for the endowment of an academy in 
each county. f This was far ahead of the legislation of any of 
the New England colonies at that time. The most they had done 
was to make general provision for education. There were well- 
educated men in all of the colonies, at all times. These advanced 
movements in Georgia were plainly the work of the scholars, as 
there was neither sufficient population, nor the disposition on the 
part of what there was, to support them. 

We see that there were no common school systems outside of New 
England, reaching the masses of the people, during the colonial 
period. Even they improved but little in their methods of im- 
parting instruction. Their courses of study were of the most 
■elementary nature — not attempting much more than to teach 
reading and writing, and hardly advancing beyond the Bible as 
a reading or spelling book. The steadiness with which they 
were maintained, however, made them an incalculable power for 
good, demonstrating, beyond all possibility of contradiction, 
that they must forever accompany all high forms of civilization. 
Any community, entirely composed of persons who can read and 



* Hon. N. B. Middleton, President of the College of South Carolina. 

t Win. Henry Waddell, Professor of Ancient Languages and Literature 
in the University of Georgia. 



14 Origin, Gkowth, and Texdexcies of 

write, are beyond l:)eing made the victims of grave impositions, 
or tolerating for a very long period of time abuses detrimental 
to the public good. They can not be considered otherwise than 
a legacy — a noble legacy of the Church to the ReiDublic. 

When the colonies had declared their independence of Great 
Britain, and formed the confederation of 1777, each of them 
formed a new constitution adapted to the new order of things, 
Georgia taking, theoretically, the highest position, being the only 
one that declared in her constitution that " schools should be sup- 
ported at the general expense of the State." 

The more thoughtful of the statesmen of the revolutionary 
})eriod clearly saw, after a short trial, that the confederation 
could never be the permanent form of government for this coun- 
try, and were looking to a republic as an ultimate realization. 
The discussions of the period of the transformation from the con- 
federation to the republic show that there was great unanimity 
of opinion upon two points — that in a republic there could be no 
standing army, and that education must be universal. 

third THE FOUXDATIOX OF THE STATE SriIOOLS AXD OKIGIX 

OF ACADEMIES. 

The success of the colonies placed in their possession a tract of 
Umd known as the Northwestern Territory. To permanently 
provide for the education of the people who might settle the ter- 
ritory, the sixteenth section of each township of land was reserved 
for the purpose of forming a permanent fund for the support of 
common schools, and seventy-two sections were subsequently 
granted to each State formed out of the territory, as the founda- 
tion of a university. This was the commencement of the peo- 
ple's schools. The reserve of lands in the northwestern territory, 
which comprised the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, 
and Wisconsin, formed a precedent that has governed the coun- 
try in all of its acquisitions since that time. There are now well- 
organized school systems in all of the new States, some of which 
have levie'd a tax of two mills on the dollar on all of the taxable 
property within their jurisdiction, for the support of common 
schools, — this being in addition to the income derived from the 
land fund. Besides this, the States have passed laws permitting 



Educatiox in the United States. IT) 

discretionary taxation in localities for the support of high schools 
In many places property is paying four mills, and occasionally 
more, on the dollar, for the support of schools. 

The reserve of lands we have mentioned dates back to tlie 
celebrated ordinance of 1787; but j;he first organization of a svs- 
tem connecting each district with a state department is wholly 
within this century. The improvement in text-books and meth- 
ods of teaching have kept pace with the general advance of sci- 
entific knowledge and the development of the industrial arts. 

After the seventeenth century the distinctly Puritan type of 
thought began to give way. As the colonies prospered and the 
industries became diversified, l^oth grades of their town schools 
Ijecame somewhat neglected, on account of other employments 
affording better remuneration for the services of young men. 
The fact that woman could teach had not then been discovered. 

In 1761, which was over a century after the primary and gram- 
mar schools had been in operation, the first acadenn^ was founded 
at Byfield, in Massachusetts, by Gov. Wm. Dummer. The Phil- 
lipses soon after followed his example by the endowment of acad- 
emies at Andover and Exeter. They performed the same office 
as the grammar school, the intention of which was the prepara- 
tion of the student for college. They were extensively organized 
both in and out of New England. Education was still pursuing 
the old monastic course — teaching the mathematics, but placing 
the Greek and Latin classics as the foundation and the pinnacle 
of the system. The laws, however, in relation to towni schools, 
including the high standard of qualification for teachers, contin- 
ued in force till' 1787. At that time they were so modified as to 
lessen the time the schools were taught and increase the numbei- 
of families requisite for the maintenance of a grammar school. 
We discover a coincidence of time between the breaking up of 
the old system and the adoption of our present form of govern- 
ment. They had always lacked one vital element, which was 
supervision. 

The Puritans were the founders of our school systems; so their 
descendants were the first to bring their organization to a high 
state of efficiency. 

The first meeting which led to practical results w^as held in 
Boston, in 1830. It was attended bv distinguished educators 



(> 



K) Oeigix, Growth, axd Tp:xdexcies of 

I'roiu all parts of New England, and resulted in the organization 
of the American Institute of Instruction, intended for the mutual 
benefit of actual teachers. By its efforts State boards of educa- 
tion were appointed, and by them normal schools and teachers' 
institutes established. 

The old States have varied in their methods of creating State 
funds, and in their systems of taxation for making the schools 
free; but free schools may now be said to have arisen to a national 
principle. The experience of all the States that have had expe- 
rience in this direction conclusively shoAvs that schools for teach- 
ers and vigilant supervision are indispensable. Connecticut and 
Rhode Island established normal schools and suspended them; 
but future legislatures restored them with g-reat unanimity. New 
York, in 1850, adopted the system of supervision by county 
superintendents, and soon abolished it, but in 185G returned t 
it, and, after a trial from that time to this, approves it. 

The co-education of the sexes in the lower grades of the colo- 
nial schools during the latter part of their existence, demonstra- 
ted the capacity of woman to successfully investigate subjects 
requiring analytical methods of thought, which led to her employ- 
ment as a teacher. In each decade since 1830, the ratio of female 
teachers has rapidly increased, and several State Superintendents 
have officially stated that the schools, as a rule, have prospered 
as well in their hands as in the hands of men. This is the most 
substantial compliment that woman has ever yet received. 

The one hundredth anniversary of the republic is now nearly 
at hand, yet but little over half of the States have school sys- 
tems that are adequute to the most urgent public necessity. The 
deficiency is so groat as to have alarmed the most thoughtful 
minds of the nation. There are eight States where between fifty 
and sixty per cent of the entire population over ten years of age 
can neither read nor write; five between thirty and fifty; and 
four between fifteen and thirty.* 

AMiile our record is as dark as this, it will become us much 
more to be clothed in sackcloth and ashes than to be proclaiming- 
from our forums and tribunes, in rounded periods, that we have 
the most efficient common school svstems of anv nation in the 



* See Eeport of the Coiumissioner of Education for 18^ 



Education in riiE Uxitki) States. 17 

world. While such an evil is hangiiig, with portentous oiuens, 
over the very sources of republican existence, every iniiid should 
be aroused to the danger, and bestow its njaturest thought upon 
the means of its removal. 

Great and incalculable as are the benefits which arise from the 
common schools, we never should have had them, had it not 
been for the interest taken in general education ])y men who 
had received a classical education in the colleges; hence our at- 
tention will now be directed to the subject of 

FOURTH HI(;i)KR EDUCxVTlOX ])KX( >.AriXAT10N A L ( OLLEiiES. 

AVe have traced the primary and intermediate schools to the 
Puritans as their originators. Collegiate education had the sanK:" 
origin. The classical department of Harvard University was the 
only college in the country for more than half a (-(Mitur}-, and 
< luring the colonial period there were l)ut nine colleges, all oi 
wdiich were under the control of different branches of the church. 
They were located in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, 
New^ Ham])shire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Vir- 
ginia. 

As an elementary educator the Static is iirconiparal)ly ahead of 
all other agencies; but as a collegiate educator the church has 
kept in the van of advancing knowledge. Fully eighty-five per 
vent of all the colleges in the country are under the cbntrol of 
the different l)ra.nches of the church.* I'he ol^ject of the old 
<ui-riculum was purely disciplinary. It taught that tlie mind was 
to be discipjined for 'its own sake — was to develop all of its at- 
tributes as a duty that it owed to itself — that the purpo.-^es of 
its creation were not subserved till that was acconiplished. That 
was a high motive to place before the young. No dr()ss of busi- 
ness; no motives of worldly gain; no thirst foi' distinction among 
men; but a sense of duty that overpowered and weighed down 
all other motives was to lead the mind first to know itself — to be 
capable of using, in their highest state of discipline, the high 
(jualities with which it is endowed. Some of our modern colleges 
still exclusively cling, to this high princi})le; but as a rule they 
have added courses of study having in view preparation for bus- 



See Report of the Ooniniissioner of Edncati^ni, 1S7: 



18 Ci^KKiix, GKowrir. avd Thvpfixcies of 

iiiess pursuits. The iiumiIkt of students atteiulino- these schools 
j^eatly exceeds the attendance upon all other classical schools, 
and they are thereby operatino; uj)on the veiy fountaiiis of Amei- 
ican thought. * 

[t has lono- been a well settled principle that the faculties of 
the mind are strengthened by us(% as well as the faculties of tlu^ 
Ixxlv; and the C'hi-istian sects hold that all syst<Mns of education 
which do not directly and forcibly address instruction to its moral 
as well as intellectual powers, are defective. This ]>rinciple is 
iield to be of such li-anscendent importance, and their confidence^ 
that Chiistianity supplies this necessity is so great, that they do 
not feel safe to tiust any theory of education which does not em- 
l)race it. The church, in its \ ai-ious forms, including- the ancient 
Hebrew Church, has always b(>cn the re|X)sitory of learning. 
Martin Luther declared, on various occasions and in the most ex- 
plicit manner, that the only way to preserve the Scriptun^s was 
ro preserve their orio-inal lanouaii-es. The Roman Catholic Church 
was the repository of nearly all the learning cultivated in Eu- 
roj)e, from the <lownfall of the Roman Empire to the revival of 
learning in the ir)th and Kkh centuries. Luther was educated 
in its monasteries to such a degree of efficiency that he was aj)- 
])(>inted to a professoi-ship in the University of Wurtemburg, 
Its cultivation of learning-, (M)ml)ined with its ecclesiastical svs- 
tem, was what constituted its pow(M- during- that lorg])eri()(l: and 
it was the learning that the clergy possessed, in contrast with the 
ignorance of the masses, which enabled them to maintain their ec- 
clesiastical systetn. The Protestant sects all understand this 
power of learning. Not one of them considers itself firndy es- 
tablished, ur»til it has a well-endowed college. The men that go 
out from them are generally towers of strength to the-ir several 
d«'nominations. 

The courses of studv in the old colleo'es were literarv and 
iJiblical — the literaiy ccuii'se IxMug composed of the (rreek and 

* My correspondence with these colleges has extended from the oldest to 
the most recently organized, and to every Christian sect to which they belong : 
also to nearlj' every State where they are located. It will be impossible to 
make special acknowledgments, as I am only proposing an outline sketch of 
their origin in this country — the principles upon which they are endeavoring 
to direct the ATnerican uiind, and their methods of dointj it. 



Kduoation in the United States. 10 

Latin classi(;s. and the Biblical course consistiiiir of those Asiatic 
languages pertaining to ancient Biblical learning. 

At the conunencement of this century, the divinity course be- 
gan to constitute a school by itself, which was the origin of our 
system of theological schools — the first of which was organized 
jit Andover, M{i,ss., in 1808. That class of schools has rapidly in- 
I'reased, and the college proper is nowhere placing in its curricu- 
lum the sacred languages. 

The rapid growth of universities within the last forty years 
has changed the management of the colleges of the church in 
every respect. They now fully endorse the idea that without 
■a knowdedge based upon the facts of luiture, religion itself may 
be made a degrading superstition. To give expression to this 
conviction they luive established scientific schools, wherein the 
laws governing the different departments of nature are thorough- 
Iv investigated. Some of these scientific courses are as exten- 
sive and efhcient as any in the universities. 'I'he principle that 
the student will succeed best in studies for which he has a natu- 
ral taste is also i-ecognized, and elective courses established, t(v 
the full extent of the teaching force 

The occupations which the alumni of these colleges follow have 
])een traced* in several instances by the colleges from which 
Th(^y graduated, and the discovery made that they enter the three 
professions of divinity, law, and medicine, and kindred intel- 
lectual work. It is rarv indeed that one enters any of the anu- 
niercial or industrial enterprises. 

We sometimes hnd fault with our classical courses on account 
.)( their antiquitv, and complain of th<'ir lack of ada)>tation to our 
])resent educational needs. 

Tn reply, the colonial colleges pu1)lis'n catalogues of their grad- 
uates from the hrst, an<l then ask us to examine American biog- 
raphy for the purpose of discovering their influence upon Ameri- 
can civilization. We are asked, with a pride that has a strong- 
basis upon fact, what modern course of study has developed the 
mind into fuller and more harmonious proportions? 

Tn concluding this department of our subject wc can not rc~ 

* This work was performed by Dartmouth College in its early historj' : by- 
Harvard classical departiaeut ; and with great particularity by Pennsylvania 
(A>llege. 



tVaiii tVuiii expressing an abiding synipathv with tl\<' inijxtrtant 
Avork nf the colleges of the church. 

FIFTH — r N IVKIISITIES. 

The fottudei's nl" the republic lully comprehended its necessi- 
ties, and saw that, however great our sympathies might be with 
denominational schools, none of them coidd take charge of State 
universities while the national government ]).ohibits an estab- 
lished religion. They also luiderstood that the j>(H)ple could 
never lay claim to nu al)ility to permanently maintain republican 
institutions, unless they could organize and maintain schools 
that were caj)abh^ ot" investigating all departm<^nts of knowledge 
that underlie civilization. 

To enabh^ the p(M)ple to enter upon these investigations, the 
seventy-two sections of land already' noticed were granted to 
each of the States formed out of the Northwestern Territory, as a 
foundation for a university. Those grants foimed precedents 
that have since governed the country in this respect. Our oldest 
universities have been built up by the addition of ]>rofessional 
schools, at vari(»us periods of tinu', to colleges that had previ(tusly 
existed. It was the colonial i)ractice for many of the profes- 
sional stu(huits to graduate first at the colleges, then prepare for 
their professions in private offices. It was found that a school 
einbodying all tlu^ instructions of the private office, with many 
tmd valuable additions, could be oro-anized that would more thor- 
oughly prepare students for professional work. The first of these 
was a medical school, organized in Philadelphia in ITbT), 

The first endowment of a professorshij) of law was by tlie Hon. 
Isaac Royal, of Medford, Massachusetts. It consisted of two 
thousand acres (^f lan<l, granted to the corporation of Harvard 
University in 1713.* 

The first separate divinity scho<)l, as previously stated, was at 
Andover, Mass., in 1808. Tlie scientific schools have all been 
founded since 1840. Some of tiu^ principles taught in these 
schools had long been taught in the old college course, Imt in a 
\ erv elementary and inadecpiate manner. 

There alwa\s has been a class of men in the country, from its 

* See Report of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College. l)y a coinmit- 
t( (" of its ahunni. 



EdUCATIOX IX THE UxiTED StATES. 21 

first organization, who have (lei)lored the lack of any systematic 
effort to provide professional discipline for farmers and mechanics. 
Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to demand a more prac- 
tical direction in courses of study. Their opinions received no 
actual application till 1855. At that time the first agricultural 
college in the United States was organized, and located at Lan- 
sing, Michigan. 

In 18G2 the principle received national recognition by a con- 
gressional act, granting thirty thousand acres of land for each 
Senator and Representative as a foundation for colleges designed 
to teach the principles of agriculture and the mechanic arts. 

In some States these colleges have been attached to coUeo-cs 
or universities already existing; in others they are separate from 
all other schools. Their courses of study are arranged on the 
same plan as the other })rofessional schools, having in view the 
general mental discipline, as well as the technical training of the 
student. They simply constitute an addition to the American 
system of university education. 

Beyond all these, there is an imperative demand from many 
(piarters for still more specially technical instruction, similar to 
the system of technical training in Euro})e. 

Our universities are now controlled by private corporations, or 
by boards of regents elected by the several States having such 
institutions. Some of those controlled by private corporations 
are the oldest and the best endowed in the country. They were 
carried through the first struggles of their existence by aid from 
the colonial legislatures; but have now received such large en- 
dowments from individuals, in all their departments, that they 
are enabled to cut loose from the trannneling political considera- 
tions often attending state legislation. 

The State universities are in every sense the institutions of the 
people. Their condition measures the intelligence of the peo- 
ple who have charge of them. The universities under the man- 
agement of private corporations measure the intelligence of 
scholars; the colleges of the church, that of the clergy. 

There is not one of any class of these institutions, that has 
advanced to its own perceptions of true uni^■ersity work. Each 
l)rofessor should be to his department what Columbus was to nav- 
igation — an explorer. He should be a discoverer .of knowledg'^^ 



'2-1 OiMGix, (tkoavth, axd Texdkxcies of 

and leave its difiusioii for otlier schools. Their condition shows 
them to be very far Ijack of that standard — a fact which they 
feel more keenly than the peoi)le who su])port thenu* 

Whether the people will accomplish through their universities 
what they have undertaken, ])rouo-ht to a direct business state- 
ment, is solely a question of money. Whether the money will 
1)e furnished, or not, depends upon the appreciation the people 
have of the public utility of the results which have been and 
ai'c likely to be secured by their investigations. To show their 
extent and indicate their utility, we will now attempt a general, 
l>ut in no sense complete or exhaustive survey of the departments 
of learnino; thev are examinino-. In our statements we shall 
make no attempts whatever at professional language in any de- 
partment. Our purj)ose is accomplished if we succeed in stat- 
ing the facts in our vernacular language only. 

ft is the established and uniform practice of all the classical 
schools of the country to give the Greek and Latin languages, 
and the literature connected with them, the first place in their 
courses of study. The ancient Asiatic languages are taught 
when there are students enough wishing to learn them to organize 
classes; but the catalogues nowhere show that they exist. There 
is a growing interest in Oriental learning, and a Sanskrit profes- 
sorship is now endowed at Harvard University; but the funds are 
not yet available, nor the school organized. Many of us ask 
why our colleges giv'e such prominence to Greek and Roman 
beaming. Is it still necessary to conduct every generation of 
young men through the mythology, legends, and fables of those 
nations':' Is there no knowledjre of more modern origin of higrh- 
er importance, and equally disciplinar}^ to the leainer? We can 
ascertain by examining the works of three or four Greek and 
Roman historians — especially those that give a synopsis of the 
])hilosophies — that there is a remarkable agreement between 
them in tracing some of the theories in relation to the construc- 
tion of the earth, which modern science is actually demonstratino- 



* Our knowledge of the universities was obtained in the same manner as 
that pertaining to the other classes of schools ; which was by a correspond- 
ence with them extending over the entire country. I received letters from 
dl classes of prof assional men connected with them : also papers and official 
tf-oformation upon all phases of university work. 



Education ix the Uxiti:i) States. ;>:) 

to them. The human intellect there received a new })irth, and 
has shed a luminous halo over all the centuries since. There 
were several extensive and powerful military empires that exist- 
ed previous to Greece and Rome; but nearly all knowledge con- 
cerning them that has reached us in an authentic manner, intU'- 
pendent of the Hebrew Scriptures, has come through those lan- 
o-uages. The early Greek historians are referred to as the fatheis 
of profane history, Tn speculative philosophy they rose to a higli 
position as thinkers. Their literature has thrilled and delighted 
th(^ world from its lirst appearance. Their oratory was so near 
the ultimate of all attainment as to have been consulted ever 
since as a model. Every sculptor and painter is at this moment 
consulting the Greek masters. Rome is accredited with havinii- 
made valuable additions to Grecian learning in military science 
and jurisprudence — especially the latter. It also surpassed all 
previous nations in stamping its language upon its conquered 
provinces. The works of Roman statesmen, jurists, militaiy 
writers, historians, orators, sculptors, painters, poets, rhetoricians, 
and scholars of all classes, will be consulted while learning is 
cultivated among men. Tn fact, these two nations made such 
great additions to the learning of the world, and the necessity of 
preserving their languages in order to preserve the knowledge 
they contain is so universally acknowledged, that they have been 
awarded the hrst position in every school both in Europe and this 
country which attempts to conduct its students to the sources of 
knowled<re made available bv modern nations. 

He who reads English can only catch glimpses of the beauty 
and utility of the long era of Greek and Roman scholarship^ — 
from translations that have been made — sufficient to make him 
desire a more extended and critical knowledge and to fully un- 
derstand why those who have exhaustively explored those invit- 
ing fields are so positive in regard to its necessity. It is entirely 
tenable to say that a knowledge of those languages is not neces- 
sary to success in any business pursuit; but to claim that the 
knowledge they contain can be blotted out without damage to 
the stock of accumulated learning is another and altogether more 
untenable statement. 

The diseases of the human body have been subjects of the 
deepest concern of all nations of all ages. In former e])Ochs 



'U OiMGix, GRO^^"III, and Texdexciks oe 

thoy were treated l)y the incantations of magicians. The nied- 
icaL schools at our universities are teaching students to treat them 
with medicines prepared in the evaporators, retorts, and balances 
of the chemical lal)oratory. They have also undertaken to in- 
\ estio-ate the nature and cause of disease. Those of contao-ious 
properties, such as Asiatic cholera and yellow fever, have some- 
times swept over extensive districts, frightfully decimating the 
poj)ulation in a few days' time. Human anatomy, in all of its 
complicated relations, receives the most critical attention. Physi- 
ology, too, embracing the subtle agencies by which the mind com- 
municates with the various organs of the body, and which have 
attracted to their investigation many of the ablest minds of all 
civilized countries, receives that careful attention which its tran- 
scendent importance demands. 

All of these incpiiries can be prosecuted l)v means of books, 
drawings, models, chemical and electrical apparatus, instruments, 
dissections, lectures, and clinical and hospital practice, at a well- 
endowed professional school, in a manner so incomparably supe- 
rior to the instructions of the private office as to place the stu- 
dent in a new world when compared to the private learner. 

There is ])robably no subject that has at all times been regard- 
ed with more universal interest than the diseases,, both in their 
acute and chronic types, malformations, dislocations, and frac- 
tures, that have forever been accompaniments of the human lace. 

x\s man emerges from a state of l)arl)arism his.relations become 
more complicated, requiring well-defined rules governing them. 
The making of these rules, as necessity required, has increased 
until they have extended to every relation of life. Our laws now 
extend their jurisdiction over all classes of property rights, the 
civil liberties of the people, and life itself. The records of their 
administration have become so extensive that they have received 
specific classification; such as the law of contracts, of pleading, 
of real property, of evidence, of equity jurisprudence, interna- 
tional law, criminal law, etc. The laws pertaining to these differ- 
ent interests and the principles of equity and justice upon which 
they are founded, have secured the attention of niinds as highly 
endowed as those who have given their attention to any other de- 
})artment of learning. Among these may be mentioned Black- 
stone and Kent. The right to act as counsel for a ])arty who 



Educatiox in^ the united States. 25 

deems his rights in jeopardy, has been for centuries and is now. 
of such importance that the person attempting it must be able 
to show to authorities of acknowledged competence that he has 
studied the laws that have governed mankind enough to have a 
general knowdedge of them. 

The necessity of reaching a standard of knowledge before the 
applicant will be permitted to assume any responsibility, raises 
that department of learning to the dignity of a profession, and 
has been considered of sufficient importance to the people to es- 
tablish schools at their universities for the purpose of investiga- 
ting the entire jurisprudence of the past, and teaching the fun- 
damental principles that must govern the construction of the 
statutes of the present. 

The first necessity of man is food. All densely populated 
countries v/atch with bated breath the varying signs of a harvest. 
A failure in the products of a single year carries unutterable 
misery and desolation in its train. The annual products of the 
earth are of such great importance in those countries that the 
cultivators of the soil dare not depart from known and reliable 
methods. In Japan and China they have l^ooks which describe 
with great minuteness and particularity every process necessary 
to secure a crop. In Europe they have established agricultural 
schools and farms wherein new theories of cultivation can be car- 
ried through a series of experiments sufficient to test them. 

?n]-'TM — i; N I VEU.«iTlJiH. 

The Germans, as in everything else pertaining to schools, have 
taken the lead in systematically organizing them, and securing 
substantial results. Other European states are pursuing the 
same enquiries wdth success and utility. In Germany there are, 
in general, chemical laboratories connected with special depart- 
ments of agriculture, including stables, greenhouses, gardens, 
cheese-making, researches in wine culture, etc. They are occu- 
pied with experiments in vegetable and animal nutrition, fertil- 
izers, and the wdioie range of natural laws underlying the pro- 
duction of food. They have been of great value in exposing 
the frauds connected wdth the manufacture of commercial fertil- 
izers and seeds. The value of green food as compared with dry 
has been a subject of experiment; also various other methods of 



26 Origix, Growth, axd Texdexcies of 

preparing food for stock. New and valuable principles are con- 
stantly being demonstrated. The first one of these schools was 
founded about twenty years ago, and their service to agriculture 
has been so great that they have increased to seventy, about half 
of which have been founded within the last five years. This ex- 
perience of conservative practical Germany and the other states 
of Europe is evidence of their value to any agricultural country. 

Our agricultural colleges have not been in operation long- 
enough to know what they can do for us; but there is a growing 
sympathy with them. 

The Atlantic coast is rapidly changing to garden-farming — 
the presence of great cities and an immense ocean fleet requiring 
different tillage from the prairies of the West. The question 
there is fertilizers. The supply of stable manure has been so en- 
tirely inadequate for years that large quantities of guano have 
annually been imported from islands belonging to the Peruvian 
Government in South America. Guano finally rose to a price so 
high that it could not be used as a general fertilizer; which brought 
into existence manufacturers of commodities to take its place. 
A number of these commercial products were analyzed by the 
State Chemist of Massachusetts, and the revelations were so as- 
tonishing that the State passed a law making them all subject to 
analysis by the professor of chemistr}^ in its college of agricul- 
ture. The chemists connected with these institutions are doing 
valuable service in several States. Dr. Kedzie, the professor of 
chemistry in the agricultural college of Michigan, has shown that 
the paper used on our walls contains so much arsenic in its color- 
ing as to have actually destroyed the health of families in some 
instances, and that the syrups used on our tables and bought by 
the people under the impression that they are molasses, were in 
15 samples out of 17 that were analyzed by him, not made from 
sugar-cane at all, but were manufactured from starch-sugar and 
adulterated with sulphuric acid, copperas, and lime, to such an ex- 
tent as to be dangerous to health, and in one instance they pro- 
duced death. 

Stock growers' associations are demanding the organization of 
veterinary schools at these institutions, that shall include in their 
teachings a knowledge of the diseases and their treatment of 
the whole range of domestic animals. 



Education in the United States. 27 

The fruit crop of the Northwest is annually damaged greatly 
by insects. Pomological societies are eagerly availing themselves 
of the services of the professors of entomology and botany. The 
State agricultural societies are all endorsing the theory of these 
schools, demanding only that their couxses of study shall move 
out of the ruts traveled and worn by the monasteries of the mid- 
dle ages, and assume the same attitude towards agriculture and 
the mechanic arts that the medical and law schools do towards 
those professions. 

These schools, in this period of their infancy, will need the 
good will of those whom they are designed to benefit. Too 
speedy results must not be expected. It takes any college, with 
the best of feeling on the part of its friends, from fifteen to twen- 
five years to get fairly established on a permanent basis. The 
history of nearly every x\merican college is one of severe trial, 
many times of suspense and doubt. 

Even the common schools, backed as they have been by large 
State funds and a universal recognition of their necessity, were 
weak and inefficient during the first years of their existence. 

The University of Michigan is now strong; but the time was 
when its best friends discussed the propriety of suspending it for 
a time. 

There never was a time in the history of the school systems of 
this nation, when any branch of them needed a more tender re- 
gard or active support than these schools for the laboring men. 
They extend to every State, being thereby supported by the sym- 
pathy and moral power of the country. A failure would be dis- 
astrous indeed. 

The science of astronomy is one of the oldest known depart- 
ments of learning. A knowledge of it, in connection with the 
magnetic needle, is indispensable to navigation; neither could 
time be measured without such knowledge. An eclipse is no 
longer considered portentous of a visit from evil spirits. The 
earth revolves upon its axis, at the same time that it is moving 
with great velocity through space in its annual journey around 
the sun, day and night alternating and the seasons making uni- 
form changes in obedience to laws of matter capable of demon- 
stration. This science has such a wide application to the practi- 
cal affairs of life that manv of the universities and colleges have 



28 Origix, Groavtii, and Texdexcies of 

erected ol)servatories and placed in them the most powerful in- 
struments that the present knowledge of the transmission and 
refraction of light have produced. They everywhere recognize 
the necessity of maintaining in this department the ablest men 
that can be secured. 

The mathematics, in all their widely diversified applications to 
industrial, commercial, and scientific pursuits, are exhaustively 
taught; also the application of the mechanical forces to the con- 
struction of machinery as a sul^stitute for human labor. 

If there is any department of this wide range of research of 
more particular and special value than another, it is perhaps to 
be found in the investigations now going on in the mineral, veg- 
etable, and animal departments of nature. 

The rocky crust of the earth, so far as it has been exposed by 
mines, rivers, volcanoes, earthquakes, and all other agencies, gives 
incontrovertible evidence of having been gradually developed in 
conformity with laws pertaining to matter, instead of being an 
instantaneous creation in its present form. The rocks vary so 
greatly in their structure that they may be considered in separate 
classes or orders, and each general class in several varieties. The 
lowest formation contains no trace of animal or vegetable petri- 
factions. The succeeding order contains both animal and vege- 
table petrifactions, but of the lowest orders of both, and of 
kinds that are not now found on the earth. Resting upon this 
formation is found a class different in position and containing an 
abundance of petrifactions of known animal and vegetable kinds, 
though confined to the lowest orders. 

In ascending to the alluvial deposits, which are now progress- 
ing, we find the mineral ores, petrified wood, coal, and the sketch- 
es of a great variety of animals, some of which are of quadru- 
peds of the most gigantic dimensions, and in latitudes where the 
same varieties do not exist. 

The rocks are chemical combinations and formed by crystaliza- 
tion. This fact shows that the matter of which they are com- 
posed must have previously existed in a fluid state, and an infer- 
ence is drawn that previous to the fluid state it existed in a gas- 
eous form. 

Different theories have been advanced, dating from the Greeks, 
as to the cause of the fluiditv of matter — one l^ranch of theorists 



Education in the United States. 29 

claiming that it was fire, another water. Each theory has had 
the support of many able men in both ancient and modern times 
— the greater weight of evidence being with the latter, which 
originated with Thales, a Greek philosopher. The rocks being- 
found as chemical combinations and formed in obedience to the 
laws of crystallization, has led to a very critical examination of 
that law of matter known under the general title of chemical 
affinity. 

Different substances that are governed by this low of affinity 
for each other will unite and form a substance different from 
either. On this characteristic of matter is based the science of 
chemistry, which has completely revolutionized the science of 
medicine, and which has such a w^ide and diversified application 
to the industrial arts that there is not a person in this country 
who is not directly or indirectly benefited by it. To conduct 
investigations in this science on a scale commensurate with the 
public good requires a considerable outlay of capital in the con- 
struction of a building and purchase of apparatus, and a I'eliable 
income to meet the expenses of operating it. The beneficial re- 
sults nearly or remotely growing out of such teaching, will far 
exceed the cost of its support. The i-ocks which we have men- 
tioned as constituting the principal portiow of the earth's crust 
are in many places split asunder vertically, and the chasms thus 
formed are denominated veins, which are found to be filled with 
nearly as many substances indispensable to the successful prose- 
cution of the industries as are produced upon the surface itself. 
Among these are the large number of metallic ores, some of the 
principal of which are platinum, gold, silver, mercury, lead, cop- 
per, tin, iron, and zinc; and among the mineral substances, al- 
most wholly indispensable, may be mentioned coal and salt. 
Gypsum, limestone, and several other substances are of great 
value. The chemical principles involved in the formation of these 
substances are so variously applied by nature that their trans- 
formation from their natural condition to forms adapted to our 
wants has led to the organization of mining schools. at our uni- 
versities, as the most economical method of making the knowl- 
edge available to the public. 

The entire absence of fossil petrifactions in the lower stratum of 
rocks indicates that during its formation neither the internal con- 



30 Origtx, Growth, axd Texdexcies of 

dition of the earth nor the condition of the external atmosphere 
were capable of sustaining a form of organization endowed with 
the principle of life. These fossil petrifactions, being iirst found 
in their lowest types, and gradually rising to more complete and 
varied structures in l>oth kingdoms, furnish ground for the po- 
sition that the earth contains a history of itself. 

There is a class of scholars examining this highly interesting- 
department of nature, for the purpose of discovering general 
laws in obedience to which the ve^retable and animal kino-doms 
have been developed. 

The rocky masses not only succeed each other in orders or 
classes, but Avhen viewed on a broad and general scale, embrac- 
ing the whole earth, they occupy the same relative situation. 

The science of g^eology is of such practical importance that 
every State and territory of the Union has either made a geolog- 
ical survey or is desirous of doing so at the earliest possible mo- 
ment. 

In ascenclino- from the mineral to the vegetable world it is dif- 
ticult to find the precise line of separation. There are structures 
that have been assigned to both. When viewed as a whole, how- 
ever, the distinction is plain to all. The highest manifestation 
of the mineral world is found in the operation of the laws of 
chemical affinity and crystallization. What causes chemical com- 
bination is yet unknown. In what that power consists which 
gives a definite and geometrical figure to the primary molecule 
of the crystal, and with absolute accuracy enables it to maintain 
its configuration through every stage of its growth, thus separa- 
ting one species from another, and enabling us to discriminate 
its class by its figure alone, we are also ignorant. 

In the vegetable kingdom Ave first meet with the ^^/-/^c/^j/e o/?//6'. 
The boulder, that may be picked up from the earth, is fortuitous 
in its origin and receives its growth by accretions from without; 
the plant receives its growth from within and by the use of or- 
gans mutually dependent upon each other. The rock may be 
destroyed by mechanical or chemical force, and each particle will 
possess the characteristics of the aggregate mass. If a branch 
is broken from the stalk of the plant it loses the characteristics 
it possessed while attached to. it; and if the plant is removed 
from the soil the operations of its organs are entirely suspended 



Education in the United States. 31 

and decay follows. The plant receives its origin in generation, 
its growth by nutrition, and its existence is terminated by a ces- 
sation of the operations of those vital forces manifested by the 
principle of life. 

What this principle of life is has been a subject of profound in- 
quiry from remote antiquity. It would swell this paper into pro- 
portions entirely beyond the limits assigned to it to merely men- 
tion the theories advanced to account for it, and give an abstract 
of the reasons by which they have been supported. I must con- 
tent myself with a statement of the conclusion we should reach, 
which is this: that it has entirety eluded the researches of all 
who have yet lived on the earth. Like the principle of perpetu- 
al motion, it is yet to be discovered. The highest manifestations 
this principle receives in vegetable growth are those of contract- 
ility in its circulatory organs, irritability, and the simple instincts 
dependent upon the manifestation of the forces of life. 

Beautiful and varied as the principles of chemical affinity and 
crystallization are, these superadded manifestations introduce us 
to a vastly more varied and higher development of natural forces. 

The botanist discovers the same law of development and clas- 
sification in ♦he vegetable products of the earth that controls 
minerals. It is said that Solomon carried his investigations 
through this department of nature from the hyssop upon the wall 
to the cedars of Lebanon. 

Nothing approaching a systematic and exhaustive classification 
has been made until a very recent period. The practical advan- 
tages arising from the possession of a knowledge of this depart- 
ment are so apparent that they need not be presented. They 
are so great that it will not do to entrust them to isolated obser- 
vations. The necessities of any commonwealth require the abil- 
ity not only to call into its service all that is now known upon 
the subject, but to vigorously prosecute original investigations. 
The one great purpose of vegetable nature, which rises above 
all others, has been to prepare the earth for the abode of animals 
and man, and to sustain their existence while upon it. The 
amount of vegetable production precisely measures the capacity 
of the earth to sustain all the higher orders of animal organiza- 
tions, of which man is the crown. Surely, then, it is the first 



o2 Origix, Growth, axd Texdexcies of 

and most imperative duty resting upon us to understand the laws 
that govern it. 

In the mineral and vegetal^le world we have seen that trans- 
formations have been effected on a scale of grandeur and mag- 
nitude that should awe every beholder to silence; but great, 
beautiful, and varied as these are, a higher achievement was re- 
served for manifestation in the animal kingdom. Tlie study of 
this dei)artment commenced at a very remote period. The He- 
brew Scriptures abound in references to diiferent kinds and spe- 
cies, and detailed accounts of the habits and manners of individ- 
ual animals. This department of learning was also cultivated 
for a long period in Egypt, Syria, and Arabia; but Aristotle was 
the first physiologist who pointed out the expediency (^f a me- 
thodical and scientific classification. He w^as a Greek scholar, 
and w^as aided by the powerful patronage of Alexander the Great. 
The most that he accomplished was to point out some general 
principles on which such a classification should proceed and the 
utility arising from it. No great achievement in this direction 
was accomplished until since the middle of the 16th century — 
a period wholly embraced within the modern revival of learning. 
Since that period many distinguished names have been and are 
now connected wath it. It will be entirely inconsistent with our 
purpose to point out the valuable additions that each individual 
scholar has made to the general stock of knowledge. It is nt) 
disparagement to the great services of the scores of scientific in- 
vestigators who have ma.de this study a specialty to say that the 
labors of Ray, Linn;\?us, Cuvier, and Agassi/, have been highly 
ap})reciated ai?d have obtained a wide celebrity. 

The classification of Linnivus has been more generally ad()j)t- 
ed than any other. 

"It divides the whole animal creation into six classes, and 
each class into a definite number of orders, and the orders into 
an indefinite number of kinds or genera; the kinds again into an 
indefinite number of species — the individuals of each species 
amounting to numbers perhaps innumerable." 

The six classes are as follows: worms, insects, fishes, amphibi- 
als, birds, and mammals. As before stated, we can not even at- 
tempt a description of this classification or give an abstract of 
the facts on which it is based; but can assure those interested 



Education in the United States. 33 

that it is elaborated with great minuteness and care, evinces the 
broadest and most comprehensive research, and is of the most 
thrilling interest. 

Most naturalists have considered man as the crown of the ani- 
mal races. Some, however,' have not. On this point facts have 
recently been presented that strongly sustain the position that 
man is but an outgrowth or development of the animal orders 
below him. These facts are so numerous that scientific men 
everywhere are endeavoring to see if they can be. confirmed by 
repetition, or by the operation of any general law that will bring 
the theory into the domain of positive knowledge. 

The advance of science is now so great in all departments that 
any new position that is sustained, even by the probability of 
facts, can be taken without subjecting the discoverer to the de- 
privation of civil liberty, or even social ostracism. He who has 
a sneer to utter because it disputes the correctness of long es- 
tablished opinions, is much more likely, in the sequel, to be sneer- 
ing at his own ignorance than otherwise. 

In the animal organization we first meet with the properties of 
muscularity, sensation, and voluntary motion. It is in this great 
department that man first feels himself bound to the surrounding 
organizations by common sympathies, impulses, and emotions. 
Here the forces of matter have forms of manifestation almost in- 
finite in number and possessing a subtlety and delicacy of opera- 
tion that surpasses the operations of the mineral and vegetable 
world, and which have a tendency to purify, refine, and exalt all 
who laboriously and conscientiously make them a study.* 

There is a department of science relating to the elements of 



* I have not referred to authorities upon the natural sciences, because I 
am confining myself more to a statement of results than to an explanation of 
theories, classifications, or methods of investigation. The labors of any one 
author have not been followed far enough to give a statement of principles on 
which he was conducting his inquiries. There is a general concurrence among 
all scientific men on most points in relation to fundamental principles. The 
presentation of the condition of learning in relation to the sciences made by 
Dr. John Mason Good, in a course of lectures before the Surrey Institute, 
England, has been more closely followed than any other. An examination of 
later authorities shows a change in the fundamental basis of investigations, 
only in such instances as have been or will be noticed. There is a very ex- 
tensive literature upon all of these sciences of great value and interest. 



34 Origix, Growtii, a^d Tendexcies of 

change teniied heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and affinlt\', 
that have been formerly classed as a kind of "imponderable ele- 
ments " in distinction from other kinds of matter. 

The demonstration of the indestructibility of matter at the 
(^lose of the last century, established a basis on which the science 
of chemistry^ has made bold and rapid advances. It is now as- 
piring to create organic substances. One of the most distin- 
guished physicians and ablest writers on physiology in Germany 
asserts that several organic suljstances have been made in the 
chemical laboratory. If the chemist could assert that a part of 
the substances with which he commenced an analysis was des- 
troyed, when the results did not meet his expectations, there 
were no exact bounds within which he must work — no inexora- 
ble law of matter that he must account for and explain. "When 
he became compelled to account for every particle of the mate- 
rials with which he started, whatever form they had assumed, 
new, and the most practically valuable and magnificent results 
attended his labors. The same principle holds good with the 
forces. If a given quantity of mechanical effect is not equal to 
the amount of power expended in producing it, the residue must 
be sought for in other forms. The idea that it is destroyed must 
not be entertained. 

Long and carefully conducted experiments by men whose 
tastes, ability, and education qualified them to make them, have 
shown that heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and affinity, are 
immaterial forces and convertible into each other — that is, each 
may be made to produce all the rest. This establishes a correla- 
tion or balancing influence between every object of nature and 
its surrounding objects, and opens one of the widest fields of 
research that has ever been presented to the mind of man. 

The machinist will study its applications to all questions of 
power; the botanist, to the profoundest prol)lems of vegetable 
germination and development; and the physiologist, to the most 
complex of all structures, the human body. 

"The forces manifested in the living system are of the most 
varied and unlike character — mechanical, thermal, luminous, elec- 
tric, chemical, nervous, sensory, emotional, and intellectual." 

It can be demonstrated that these subtle and potent forces 
hange their form of action, or in other words, what starts in one 



Education ik the United States. 35 

form changes to one or two other forms before visible manifesta- 
tion in the living body, hence is subject to the same law of cor- 
relation as the purely physical forces. The researches growing 
out of this discovery will not stop with the chemist, the natural 
philosopher, the machinist, the botanist, the medical professor, 
and physiologist, but will take the form of speculative philoso- 
phies that will endeavor to show how the human race as a whole 
is correlated with the earth, its capacities of production and 
forces controlling it. 

It is a matter of national pride that the first real demonstra- 
tions that threw light upon these discoveries were made by our 
•uwn countrymen. Like the antecedents to the discoveries in all 
the natural sciences, the students of science had long suspected 
their existence — they had become wholly dissatisfied with the 
philosophy which classed these agents of change with tangible 
matter. The first demonstration in this direction was made by 
Benjamin Franklin, in showing that lightning is nothing but 
common electricity. Benjamin Thompson, a native of New 
Hampshire, was the first to fuller transfer investigations in rela- 
tion to these agents from metaphysics to jjhysical experiments; 
the first to demonstrate the falsity of the prevailing view of their 
materiality; the first to demonstrate that quantitative relation 
exists between the heat produced by friction and that by com- 
Imstion; the first to show that there was a numerical relation be- 
tween a definite amount of mechanical work and the production 
of heat; the first to suggest the application of these principles 
in the study of the organic world; the first to demonstrate the 
quantitative convertibility of force and the fundamental conclu- 
sion that heat is but a mode of motion. These discoveries fully 
established the basis of the new philosophy. Although Mr. 
Thompson was a native of this country, all of his labors were 
performed in England and Europe. These discoveries were made 
at the close of the last century and the commencement of this, 
and as finally accepted without material alteration; but, like all 
great advances in knowledge, they had to bide their time. The 
succeeding generation did not prosecute its studies on this basis, 
wuth but very few exceptions. Sir Humphrey Davy continued 
to press the discoveries upon the scientific mind. 

About the year 1840, Grove and Joule in England, Mayer in 



36 Origix, Growth, axd Texdexcies of 

Germany, Codling in Denmark, and Seguin in France, originated 
and conducted, with minute and critical care, systems of variously 
modified experiments, which fully confirmed the conclusions of 
Thompson and greatly extended their application. Since that 
time the subject has been vigorously prosecuted in Europe and 
this country by men who, without dispute, stand in the front rank 
of scientific investigators. 

There are various reasons, which we shall not stop to explain 
here, why a new science does not rapidly get into the university 
curriculum. I notice, however, that the "correlation and conser- 
vation of forces" has, even at this early date, found its way into 
the courses of study of some of our colleges and universities.* 

We are often reminded that there has always existed a class of 
men who have rendered the greatest services to the various de- 
partments of science, and to states and nations who have quali- 
fied themselves mainly independent of all schools. If we were 
compelled to name three men to whom we are indebted for the 
success of the war of 1776 more than to any others, we should 
name George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Mor- 
ris. Certainly no men have yet appeared on this continent that 
have rendered greater services to the human race than these. 
Neither of them had a classical education. 

American biography abounds in the most illustrious examples 
of those who have made contributions to the stock of knowledo;e, 
of priceless value, and executed the trusts incident to the most 
responsible positions with credit to themselves and their country, 
who rose by their own inherent forces and mainly independent 
of external aid. Their names will forever be classed with those 
who possessed qualities of mind and heart that enabled them to 
rise above all personal ambition and take a position among the 
true conservators of the nation's greatest interests. No cynic 
can pluck one laurel from their brows. Their good name and 
fame are indelibly inscribed upon the memory of the people and 



* I am more indebted to a work entitled the "Correlation and Conserva- 
tion of Forces," edited by Edward L. Yonmans, and containing an able intro- 
duction by him, than to any other work in preparing this department of the 
subjects noticed. It contains papers by Grove, Joule, Helmholtz, Maj^er, 
Faraday, Liebig, and Dr. Carpenter. The science already has quite a volu- 
minous literature. 



Education ix the United States. 37 

will be transmitted to posterity in tradition and history. Such 
an element of scholarship will always be needed. It looks at 
subjects Vvdtb the naked eye, and refines its investigations, in the 
<crucible of common sense. Their thoughts ar« like waters gush- 
ing from their original fountains, and are without the turbulent 
admixtures of future accessories. What the man of books .would 
■obscure rather than elucidate by excessive scholarship, they will 
■often express in bold epigrams, and with such conciseness and 
power as to leave an impression upon the hearer or reader during 
life, and sometimes upon the literature of the century in which 
they were uttered. Some of the sayings of Patrick Henry, au 
orator of nature and not of the schools, are of this order. There 
will be no period in the future when the self-made men will not 
be welcomed with rapturous enthusiasm into any department of 
intellectual life they choose to enter. These men, having found 
their several fields of study blocked by so m.any obstacles, always 
have and always will endeavor to make thero smoother for future 
explorers, by their support of schools that shorten the route, l)y 
placing in a condensed form before the student everything known 
upon the principles involved. On this point we will instance 
'one representative example: 

Benjamin Thompson, the experimental founder of the new 
philosophy of forces, received only such an education as the 
colonial common schools afforded. His iia-tural tastes led him to 
the study of chemistry and the principles of mechanical power. 
At his death he endowed a professorship at Harvard University 
to teach "the apj^lications of science to the art of living.'' 

A glance at the entire class of self-made men who have devel- 
oped their capacities up to the point of performing the real work 
of the scholar, will show that they are in active co-operation with 
the graduates of the schools in their support and impro\ ement. 
This sketch of the range of studies undertaken by the people as 
the crown of their system of schools, will be recognized by the 
men actually engaged in teaching them, as exceedingly incom- 
plete; but even this is sufficient to show that they have an inti- 
mate relation with the actual affairs of life. In literature these 
studies bind the generations of men together and give a sort of 
panoramic view of our race during the ages of its history. In 
law they search for the basis of the various systems of jurispj'u- 



38 Origix, Groavth, and Tendexcies of 



<lence that have prevailed among the nations of the earth, and 
note the eff^ect of their administration upon the material and 
moral condition of the people that were governed by them, giv- 
ing opportunity to reject all bad results and place the experience 
of humanity at the service of each generation as it passes. 

In medicine they give us a history reaching from the vaguest 
ages of mythology, legend, and fable, to the present, showing 
the gradual advance of medical knowledge from the wildest and 
most improbable speculations and superstitious incantations, to 
a knowledge based upon facts confirmed by careful and rep'eated 
observation. 

In surgery the achievements are so great that the assertion of 
their possibility by any prominent physician, even two centuries 
ago, would have placed him under a ban of social ostracism the 
most painful and complete, and possibh^ endangered his liberties 
and life. They are so great that a statement of the actual facts 
will bring assertions of incredulity from thousands who might 
now witness them. 

In science they teach the principles which underlie and authen- 
ticate the arts; but they can never supersede the necessity of 
apprenticeships. Our universities can never become work-shops. 
The most they can do with the arts is to practice them merely 
enough to illustrate the laws of nature underlying them. The 
principles underlying the occupations of the civil and mining en- 
gineer, the pharmaceutical chemist, and other occupations grow- 
ing out of the various applications of the science of chemistry, 
have such a direct relation to them that the university student 
often steps directly from his studies to lucrative positions — his 
knoAvledge of the principles involved more than compensating 
for his lack of manual dexterity. 

There is a wide range of occupations that can be pursued suc- 
cessfully without any special training in the schools, and among 
them may be included farming and a large number of mechanical 
trades. They are all based upon laws of nature that can not be 
disregarded. The idea that schools might be an additional facil- 
ity for tracing out the connection between a knowledge of these 
laws and the results of their observance to the farmer and me- 
chanic, as well as to the lawyer, the physician, the engineer, and 
the arts, based especially upon a knowledge of chemistry, so 



EdUCATIOX IX THE UxiTED StATES. 30 

wrought upon the national mind as to cuhninate in the magnifi- 
cent land grant of 1862, for the purpose of endowing colleges 
of agriculture and the mechanic arts. This grant was simply 
an earnest effort on the part of this nation — the leading nation 
of the Western Continent — to elevate farming and the trades 
into professions. No higher respect has ever been shown the 
laboring men of any country, in any age of the world. It has 
put them on trial. If they fritter away this priceless gift there 
will be no ground of complaint for the controlling power that the 
schools have given to the lawyer, physician, clergyman, and the 
other more strictly business professions. The result of this exper- 
iment is a work of time. 

We search in vain for more than two organizing forces that can 
create school systems. They are the Church and the State. The 
Church is pursuing its educational efforts from one standpoint, 
and the State from another. The Church, in all of its branches, 
except the Roman Catholic, has abandoned all idea of providing 
a system of common schools adequa'e to the public wants; and 
our intelligent Catholic population clearly see that their parochial 
schools do not furnish a system of primary instruction at all ade- 
quate to the demands of modern citizenship. They are paying 
but little attention to the orders of their Bishops to keep their 
children from the State schools. Sunday and mission schools are 
strictly within the province of the Church, and all the Christian 
sects are conductina* them on a oris'antic scale. 

The colleges of the Church, on account of their denominational 
character, can never become the crown for a system of State 
schools. They are doing a great and beneficent work, and we 
thrice welcome her into any field of education that she can occu- 
py. She has no funds for endowing universities with such com- 
pleteness as to supersede the necessity of founding and support- 
ing such institutions by the State. The denominational colleges 
are doing excellent work in the classics and in science; but their 
interest in the latter is in results rather than in active, original 
investigations. 

There will always be a field of labor wide enough to exhaust 
all the funds that the Church can command, that is strictly within 
the purposes it has in view. Thousands of orphans and the indi- 
gent will be gathered within her folds, disciplined, and placed 



iO Oiac4ix, Growth, ax^d Texdexcies of 

upon the highway of eminent usefiihiess, that could never be ed- 
ucated in any other way. Several of the Church colleges now 
have such an ample endowment of scholarships that no promis- 
ing student, however indigent, is obliged to leave for want of 
support. 

Again we say, let the Christian Church, in all of its branches, 
go on with its Sunday and ntission, its classical and scientific 
scl.ools, and she will receive the best wishes and the most gen- 
erous treatment from every frientl of humanit3\ 

The State, true to its high function, aWII go steadily forward 
until it has" placed upon a permanent basis a system of instruc- 
tion broad enough to comprehend the necessities of the common- 
wealth and the nation of commonwealths. 

It is' the highest grade of schools, in any country, that gives 
life and vitality to the lower. The founders of the common 
schools of the Puritans were clergymen who had been educated 
in the colleges of England. The founders of our State common 
schools wei-e men who were educated in the colleges of the 
Church, in active co-operation with the self-educated men, who 
uniformly give an earnest support to schools of all grades. 

TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN LEGISLATION. 

In viewing the condition of tlie public mind from a broad na- 
tional standpoint, the inquir}^ presses upon us with great empha- 
sis: Are the tendencies towards a final and complete triumph in 
founding systems of State schools, that shall have a connection 
and gradation from the most elementary to the well- endowed 
university, that is exploring every age of the past and every realm 
of nature, placing at the service of their supporters all that has 
been of utility, and making all the hew and original investigations, 
likely to prove advantageous? It is a relief to be able to say, 
that when taken as a whole, the legislation of this country is un- 
mistakably in this direction. The application of steam to navi- 
gation and mechanical power, and the development of our railway 
systems, have been more rapid, but not surer. 

AVhile slavery existed there could be no common schools, out- 
side of the villages and cities, in the States holding to it, and ef- 
forts to organize schools since the abolition of slavery have met 
with great opposition, and sometimes inexcusable violence; but 



Education in the United States. 41 

even there they have steadily advanced. There always has been 
a band of scholars in every slave State who, while slavery existed, 
ruled public opinion in its interests; but, since its abolition, they 
are endeavoring- to ascertain what the real needs of the people 
are in tiie new order of thino-y. There are several colleges and 
universities iiM those States educating- teachers for the lower grades 
of schools, and other professions in active sympathy with them. 
Tl^ie, as elsewhere, ignorance has no power to help itself. The 
violence to schools has mairdy come from men who were obliged 
to nuike their mark, instead of writing their names. From New 
England, the birth-pla.ce of American schools of all grades, there 
is of course nothing but light. • In the Central States, including 
those framed out of the Northwestern Territory, nearly every 
square rood of the inhabited poi-tions belongs to a school district 
in which there is a school at least three months in every year, and 
in the inost of them graded schools in the villages and cities, that 
have a spei'ial power of local taxation. Most of the States in 
this section have well-organized universities, that have no idea of 
aband()ning the work they have undertaken, until they reach a 
standard legitimately belonging to them. 

Harvard, in point of endowment, but perhaps not in the thor- 
oughness of its teaching, has exceeded all of its colonial com- 
peers; so the University of Michigan stands in the van of prog- 
ress, in relation to the new universities. That State has not only 
erected costly buildings for its use at the public expense, but has 
founded an annuity, derived from a tax; of one-twentieth of a mill 
on a dollar, on all the taxable property of the State, which, as 
property valuation increases, w^ill make a larger aggregate, 
thereby placing its University on a basis of usefulness equal to 
its agricultural, mining, and commercial prosperity. 

Jn the newer States west of the Mississippi, the schools had a 
prominent place in the minds of their founders. Not only the 
sixteenth section of every t(nvnship was reserved for the common 
schools, pnd all the powers of local taxation conferred for the 
support of intermediate grades, but large endowments of lands 
secured for universities. The development of schools in that sec- 
tion is fully equal to that of the other great interests of the 
]jeople. 

On the Pacific coast, especially in California, they are endeav- 



42 Oeigix, Growth, Texdexcies, etc. 

oring to make the principles of education, recog-nized l)y the 
founders of the republic, ])ear abundant fruit. The professors of 
the university of that State are bringincr out text-books that are 
readily adopted by the schools of the x\tlantic coast. 

The highest grade of State schools has never yet received the 
support from private citizens that has been given to the colleges 
of the Church. Men of wealth have made the most munificent 
donations to them, througli their entire American history. A 
denomination has only to state that one of its colleges must lose 
its power for good unless it is better endowed, and the member- 
ship will respond in a spirit of sacrifice and lil)erality that can 
spring only from positive convictions of duty. 

When each State has a complete system of sch(wls, and the 
nation a university, the idea of universal education entertained 
by the Puritans and commenced by them, in gifts of money, cows, 
cotton cloth, the mites of widows, salt and fruit dishes, spoons, 
jugs, flagons, globes, goblets, and corn, the gift of which brought 
danger of want, and this in a new country, the soil of which was 
either a drifting sand, or macademized with rocks, will be real- 
ized, but consummated by the State, instead of the Church. 



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